The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

paddling around him in wide circles. ‘My friends and I used to splash each other a lot on stolen afternoons along the river.” That was the summer when Jaylor had been twelve and his companions ranged from eleven to fourteen. “There were four of us who used to slip away from our studies for afternoons of adventure. We had nothing in common except the urge to escape.”
    The many isolated islands in the delta of Coronnan River offered the perfect playground for adolescent boys.
    “All four of us schemed together, but Roy and I usually ended up paired.”
    It had been a surprise to Jaylor, who had grown up along another smaller river in the north, to find any resident of Coronnan City who had never learned to swim. He thought all the population of a city totally surrounded by water and many lesser islets would have learned to master swimming early.
    Roy had been so surrounded by adults—tutors, servants, guardians—he’d never been allowed to play in the water and thus had never learned.
    Jaylor taught him to swim that summer and earned many a dunking in the years that followed.
    “I met him in much the same manner I met you, too, Wolf,” he mused as he began to swim. His muscles stretched with a new lightness as the water cleansed his skin and his mind.
    “We both claimed the same island for an afternoon of freedom,” he continued his reminiscence. “He arrived by boat; I swam ashore about the same time. We challenged each other. I didn’t know enough magic then to defend myself.” He chuckled as he slowly made his way back to the bank and his clothes.
    “That time I lost. But the next fist fight I won.”
    Wolf bounced out of the pool and sprayed everything around with water again. Jaylor didn’t even bother to step away from the shower.
    “Shall we explore the paths, my friend?” The beast grinned and cocked his head in a gesture so evocative of Roy that Jaylor had to look twice to make sure a human intelligence did not lurk behind those golden eyes.
    Jaylor dressed hurriedly. Now that he was out of the water, the air was rapidly chilling his damp body. He needed to keep moving to get warm again.
    Wolf took a few steps back the way they had come. Jaylor started in the other direction. The wolf spun in place and bounded after him.
    The path was not well traveled past the pool. Jaylor had to push giant calubra ferns out of the way. Each time he touched one, the fronds shook and gave out the faintest wisp of fragrance. By summer the scent would be druggingly powerful, a legendary aphrodisiac.
    Wolf bent his nose to the faint trail. It was now no wider than a hand’s breadth. No human foot had trod this way in many days. Jaylor watched the animal as he sniffed and played with the scents in the air and on the ground. With a sharp yip he bounded off the trail.
    Curious, Jaylor also stepped off the trail in the same direction. He met an invisible wall. His hands pushed at the barrier. Inside him, the magic he had gathered strove to counteract the magic that tried to flow through his limbs from the outside. He stepped back onto the path. His magic stopped fighting the exterior forces.
    The border should have been like this. Jaylor squinted his eyes, allowing his magic to see what hindered his movements. There! A shimmery distortion, like looking at the bottom of the pool through several arm’s lengths of water. He pushed at it again, allowing the magic forces within him to meet the wall.
    Nothing happened. He pushed again, using more strength and speaking the border release spell. His hand burned and pulsed, but the wall still did not give way.
    He moved along the path a few more steps and tried again. If anything, the wall was stronger here.
    Every few feet he pushed again, and again, until his hand was raw from the energy he’d expended.
    “One more time. Then I’ll circle back to the clearing again.” He was getting tired. He needed rest and food to restore the magic in his body.
    And not those meatless concoctions Brevelan served.
    Using his eyes as well as both hands, Jaylor levered himself against the wall. It absorbed his strength then rebounded, pushing him back and back and farther back. He crashed through the underbrush, tumbling heels over head with the force of the thrust.
    Brevelan stood next to his prone body.
    “Did you have a nice bath?” she asked.
    He was back in the clearing.

Chapter 7
     
    “D ragon dung!” Baamin cursed. This was the third time a very simple spell had